Daggers vs Submarines

I recently got that sea battle where daggers shred submarines. This made me wondering "wtf" how anything other than torpedos can shoot underwater targets. Found this video about 50cal sniper being shot at water pool
I imagine that Big Bertha could actually shoot submarine, evaporating half of water container, but unless daggers carry 2 singularity reactors in their backpacks and fly away into deep cosmos after one shot at water, its surreal in any other case scenario.

They use Gauss, guass penetrates through whole buildings and mechs, it can penetrate water too.

Gauss does not make sense as a water piercing weapon. This is why there was a proposal to refluff it into something less definite, like Sonic, Phase or Pulse.

Ironically, that was dismissed on the grounds of "not physicsey".

Zomg guise! Give torpedoes for UW targets!

quote: If it doesn't cause Trekkie-style nerd-sniping in its wake, it isn't physicsey.

Dunno, does trek do any nerdsniping with its magical shields and magical info devices?

Surprisingly, Phase is trekky though

or just change all gauss to sonic

Well, I'm no physicist but after reading about Gauss Rifles, their representation in ZK really makes no sense at all (not even physicsey sense). A gauss cannon is just accelerating a conventional projectile, so passing through buildings/units/terrain without slowing is not explained to my satisfaction.

The gauss rifles in ZK look (and behave) more like super-heated plasma bolt launchers (as opposed to the plasma cannons common in artillery). I think that's a better (but still imperfect) explanation of their behavior:

1. They're hot as fuck, so they evaporate water easily
2. They cool rapidly after moving through any medium for a short distance, so their range is very limited.
3. They're small in diameter, so the actual damage from an individual bolt is not that great, but its ability to penetrate things is vastly superior to artillery-grade plasma ordnance, which have larger contact areas and so can not withstand impact without detonating.
4. Charging a plasma bolt in a containment field takes a while, so they have low rate of fire.

Alternatively, I think "phase" weapons are hand-wavey enough to fit here.

On the issue of carrying sufficient power to generate such a projectile on a light hovercraft chassis: this is not the most glaring impossibility in ZK. Have you ever wondered how metal can be instantly transmitted between builders regardless of distance and lack of physical connections between them? Ultimately ZK is a game, the whole point of which is to not be like real life.

Finally, I leave you with a US Navy test of a huge ass railgun

Is the fire penetrates ground problem a particularly involved fix?

kaen: That sounds really on point. Only remaining issue would be re-lore-ing the current plasma weapons (ex. glaive & warrior).

quote: Only remaining issue would be re-lore-ing the current plasma weapons (ex. glaive & warrior).

Thanks :)
The unit manual currently lists those both as "Pulse MG" presumably meaning machine guns. I've also heard them referred to as "ballistic" weapons which fits with that description. Bandits apparently have "laser blasters", like a commander's pea shooter weapon.

The "plasma cannons" on assault/arty units (Thug etc.) are characteristically different than my "plasma bolt", and would be no more of a discrepancy than the one between a bandit's "laser blaster" and the mace's "laserbeam".

I don't mind ZK being inconsistent with reality though, as long as it's consistent with itself, so I don't think any change is truly necessary.

perhaps the phenomenon called Supercavitation can explain this issue.. after all the future of penguin warfare may tell us that although a penguin bounces of the land.. it flies through the air-underwater ;)